The Market and Falling Fertility: Why Darwin Needs Help From Polanyi

Darwin said all living things tend to multiply. However, nowadays, maintaining fertility rate below the replacement level of 2.1, human beings appear to have opted to let their population shrink. Perplexingly, it occurs while the environment seems to become more suitable for their survival. In solving this puzzle, we get a great help from Polanyi. We proved that people choose to have fewer babies and consequently, usher in depopulation, because by giving them the chance to assess all the expenses necessary for raising children, the market makes the cost clarified increasingly, while the economic benefit from rearing their off-spring remains obscure.